Hasta La Creative!

This article was originally published in Adbusters #39 the Jan/Feb 2002 issue. The digital version of this issue has recently been made available for purchase.

We were standing in the street, half-way home from the day job and momentarily distracted by a good-looking parking cop, when it happened. It happened. And everything in our life – jobs, relationships, pastimes – was instantly suspended. It felt as if something beneath us was shifting in a fundamental way.

Yet the feeling was oddly familiar, too. It was the same feeling we’d had after running into the babbling hobo in the park, the refugee with the photo album. The horror was similar, followed by empathy: sorrow, hurt, fear. There was a profound sense of injustice that seemed to demand a response somehow deeper, broader, stronger than ever before.
We scrambled to make some sense of it all. How were the people around us reacting? Surely they had seen what we had seen. Had they experienced the same flash of insight?

We felt we should speak out, raise the alarm. To fail to condemn this injustice with all of our passion seemed tantamount to surrendering to it, to allowing it to be accepted as a customary part of life.
We imagined, however, that such a primal reaction would put us in the same category as street-corner preachers or incomprehensible protesters. This prompted us to pause. Maybe there was more to this. How, exactly, had this remarkable event come to pass?
Returning home, we began to consult trusted sources – family members, thoughtful friends, our old sociology professor. A favorite newspaper columnist had some wise words that touched on the subject. But what we had experienced was personal; no one could offer a completely adequate explanation. In fact, our investigations quickly complicated matters. It seemed as though the possible factors worth considering stretched across the world, arced back through history and reached deep into countless people’s minds. There was even a vague intimation that we ourselves could have been responsible in some way for the developments leading up to what had taken place today.

Our thoughts became divided. The difficult process of understanding was weakening our resolve to rise to the challenge of the moment; at the same time, it seemed immoral to act on a fading sense of certainty. We still had a long way to go to fully understand all the dimensions of this problem at its roots. But how long could we stand around and analyze and re-analyze? We felt as though we’d been walking around in a dreamworld, and that the shock today had shaken us awake. We could see, now, that we were living in the middle of a crisis. Selfdoubt seemed like a form of surrender. Even if it meant acting with limited knowledge, we had to do something. Shadows were even now spreading across the streets.
From this point on, fear of the imagined future would be the foundation of our actions. We would have to trust ourselves. We quickly reviewed the facts and opinions we had been putting together. Ideas that fell too far outside our norms were dismissed; the potential consequences were too extreme to imagine. The most honorable plan seemed to be to find a middle ground consistent with our past opinions and actions – it was these, presumably, that had led us to our insight in the first place. Abandoning the pattern of beliefs that had guided us through life to this point would be self-sabotage. We prioritized. We promptly put aside those lingering questions that could take days or even years to fully explore. We threw out ideas that we knew would isolate us in our community, or that might get us fired. We simply ignored any insights that required more consideration or baffled our sense of rationality; the most compelling ideas were those for which there were well-known, pre-existing arguments and easily understood rationales. Internal cohesion and commitment were vital.

Even as we moved towards a sense of certainty, however, we felt simultaneously anxious about the time it was taking and distraught about the haste with which we were cutting off our internal debate. At the same time, other issues – the need to get winter tires on the car, and to feed the crying baby – began to press in on us. Irritability began to outweigh earnestness. We had to figure this thing out.
Finally, we settled on a reaction – or at least a preliminary position. We had a case that we could argue and defend in the coffee room or a letter-to-the-editor; we had a starting point for personal change, maybe a little more volunteer work. At exactly this instant, without confessing it aloud, we remembered the astounding openness of our initial reaction, its almost infinite sense of possibility, and saw how quickly we had spiralled into impotence and murk.

The whole world had changed. And we had returned to life as usual.
-Rob Wipond

FROM

Adbusters #39

The Epiphany Issue

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The post Closing the Door appeared first on Adbusters | Journal of the mental environment.

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Humane Society International

The World Bank Group which finances the majority of farms globally launched a review of their safeguard policies. The current policy regarding animal welfare is substandard and outdated. By simply updating the sentence pertaining to animal welfare in the policy, the standard for how billions of farm animals are confined would be forever changed. The Humane Society International came to Grassriots to run an advocacy campaign that would help make this policy change a reality.

Advertising Agency:Grassriots, Toronto, Canada
Creative Director:Paul Bonsell
Art Director:Paul Bonsell, Deborah Caprara
Copywriter:Paul Bonsell
Photographer:Mark Ridout

Film
Havaianas

Advertising Agency:AlmapBBDO, São Paulo, Brazil
General Creative Director:Luiz Sanches
Executive Creative Director:Bruno Prosperi
Editor:Daniel Oksenberg, Tiago Gil
Art Directors:Andre Sallowicz, Luciano Lincoln
Graphic Producer:Landia
Executive Producers:Sebastian Hall and Carolina Dantas
Director:Rodrigo Saavedra
Photography:Daniel Abello
Steadicam:Eric Catelan
Set Design:Tiago Gil
Postproduction:Nash
Sound Producer:Satelite Audio
Musical Producer:Satélite team
Client Services:Fernanda Costa and Carla Finamore, Cristina Chacon, Mariana Silveira, Italo Vetorazzo, Sâmia Reiter
Rtv:Vera Jacinto, Elisa Mello and Ana Paula Casagrande
Planning:Cintia Gonçalves, Sergio Katz, Utymo Oliveira, Vanessa Sakamoto, Beatriz Scheuer
Media:Carla Durighetto
Approval:Carla Schmitzberger, Rui Porto, Christina Assumpção, Eliana Vilches, Marcelo Vecchi, Maria Fernanda Candeloro

(TrendHunter.com) The top May 2016 sharing economy ideas highlights a number of emerging peer-to-peer platforms and clever marketing campaigns from top brands.

BMW has announced it will launch a flexible car-…

Former CP+B executives Jeff Steinhour and Markham Cronin launched a full-service agency in Miami called Markham & Stein.

The pair, who have over 50 years of industry experience between them, spent 10 years together at CP+B, with Cronin handling creative and Steinhour accounts, before Markham left for West Wayne in 2000. Following a stint there and at Carmichael Lynch as a creative director, and two years as CCO at BrightHouse, he decided to launch Markham Unlimited in 2005.

“I was spending 20 percent of my time doing the valuable part of my job for clients and the other 80 percent actually running the agency,” Markham told Adweek. “So when the opportunity came to talk to Jeff about maybe doing this, there was no question it was something we should try and do together.”

Steinhour was one of CP+B’s four founding partners along with Chuck Porter, Sam Crispin and Alex Bogusky; until recently, he served as partner, vice chairman and managing director of the agency’s Miami office. He says Markham & Stein is “A new kind of shop … that brings the strategic and creative power of a big agency in a more nimble and tenacious package,” adding that “Clients are looking for groundbreaking branding solutions that once upon a time required a large agency.”

International boat engine maker Mercury Marine became the agency’s first official client, but Steinhour and Cronin have been working together on clients such as Markham Unlimited’s H & H Jewels, Coconut Grove Business Development District and Oriental Bank for several months. (The new agency inherited Cronin’s clients and his 21 employees.) The first work for Mercury Marine, for which M&S won global AOR duties after a review involving at least five other agencies, will launch in the fall. 

“As we’ve grown, we talk to bigger and bigger clients which are talking to smaller and smaller agencies,” Cronin told Adweek. “The old model of dumping every piece of marketing activity into a big agency is at its end: We’re seeing more project-based work and work split into separate disciplines. This benefits a shop of our size as the nimbleness and lack of overhead gets us talking to national and global clients.”

Regarding the formation of this new entity, Steinhour added: “After I decided to leave CP+B last fall, Mark called me and said, ‘I could use your help with a couple of pitches. That went well, one thing led to another … and we said, maybe it’s time to do something more formal. We formed a new LLC and called all of his clients, none of who had any issues. It felt pretty natural.”

The duo chose to launch the agency in Miami, Cronin says, because “It’s one of the most vibrant, thriving cities in the U.S. with heavy South American and Latin American influences. Both of us have lived in Miami for the past 25 years, and selfishly I believe that [the city] deserves a handful of good agencies.”

The agency also has a couple of clients based in Puerto Rico, with a small number of employees based in the U.S. territory focusing on those accounts.

Today in Things We Pretty Much Have to Aggregate, the biggest topic of conversation last week beyond the (allegedly) unprecedented demands made by one Ronald McDonald concerned Deutsch’s decision to part ways with Felicia Geiger and eliminate the head of diversity/inclusion position she filled.

The issue, really, was whether the move would ultimately be in the best interest of the agency’s core business including its ability to attract both new talent and new clients. Quite a few people shared their opinions on our subsequent post regarding Geiger’s comments to Campaign, and the publication (which coincidentally began its rebranding today) ran a trend story on the topic this morning.

That piece is worth a read if you can get past the paywall, and it’s notable for the fact that pretty much every executive agrees CDOs are here to stay and that Deutsch’s decision was fundamentally a cost-cutting move.

For example, Tiffany Warren of Omnicom counters the claim that every employee contributes to diversity efforts by saying, “If creativity is everybody’s responsibility, then why do you have the chief creative officer?”

From CEO Rob Schwartz of TBWAChiatDay New York:

“What I like about it is that it’s official that we’re taking diversity seriously. It’s unambiguous our point of view on it. We actually have someone who thinks about this when they wake up and dreams about it when they go to sleep. It’s opening up avenues to talent that, had we not had Doug here, we might not have thought about.”

It’s not unsurprising to learn that the CDOs who spoke to Campaign disagree with Deutsch’s decision and that they don’t seem to think an HR director can handle all of the duties previously entrusted to someone whose primary responsibilities concern both hiring a more diverse group of employees and enshrining such practices on a cultural and organizational level.

We do not have an opinion on this matter because we are third party observers. But we do feel like it might have been constructive to have a contradictory opinion in this mix like the ones voiced by some of our readers and the 40 percent of participants in a recent Campaign poll who said companies don’t necessarily need CDOs in 2016.

Most of the people who left well-formed thoughts on our posts (and there were some!) voiced some variation on the idea that chief diversity officer is a position that brings little direct value to an agency despite Heide Gardner of IPG telling Campaign that “it’s ultimately about enhancing shareholder value” for holding companies.

As IPG CEO Michael Roth told us in a February interview: “We’ve moved beyond quotas. Our industry has to move toward inclusion because the marketplace demands it.”

Few would disagree with him outright, but a significant minority of people who work in the business seem to think the act of satisfying those market demands doesn’t require an internal chief diversity officer position.

More than 120 prominent figures signed a letter calling on President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to release Ahmed Naji, imprisoned for a novel the government said was immoral.

Chandelier Creative changes the formula a bit in its latest campaign for Old Navy.

Following a holiday campaign starring Portlandia duo Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen, the new effort features a larger ensemble than previous campaigns starring Julia Louis Dreyfus and Amy Poehler, an approach hinted at in November’s “Snoopin’ Around” spot. Silicon Valley’s Kumail Nanjiani, who appeared in that spot alongside Dreyfus and Snoop Dogg, is back, joined by current and former SNL cast members Cecily Strong, Jay Pharoah and Nasim Pedrad.

All four appear in the 60-second spot promoting the brand’s #NeverBasic tees, in which Nanjiani explains what he looks for in a t-shirt: “right sleeve, left sleeve, neck hole.” They play a variety of fairly stereotypical characters (think California surfer, burned-out hippie, etc.) who all appreciate a line of shirts for which “basic” is a fairly accurate description.

We appreciate the agency changing things up, though the spot above tries very hard to cram as much as possible into its 60 seconds. (We do also appreciate the t-shirt specifications we have in common with Nanjiani.)

There’s also a 30-second version of the ad and some 15-second improv spots, each exploring one of the characters.

CREDITS

Client: Old Navy
Agency: Chandelier Creative
Creative Director: Lena Kuffner
Creative Director: Richard Christiansen
Executive Producer: Sara Fisher
Account Director: Eileen Eastburn
Senior Account Manager: Olivia Kaufman
Producer: Gulshan Jaffery
Production Coordinator: Camilla Rothenberg
Production Company: Prettybird
Director: Matt Piedmont
Executive Producers: Ali Brown
Director of Photography: Giles Dunning
Editorial: Cut + Run
Editor: Jay Nelson
Executive Producer: Amburr Farls
Telecine: Color Collective
Colorist: Alex Bickel
Executive Producer: Claudia Guevara
Audio Post: Sonic Union
Mixer: Mike Marinelli
Finishing: MPC NY
Executive Producer: Camila De Biaggi
Finishing Producer: Matthew Loranger

Media, Promo, PR
Sporting Clube de Portugal

Advertising Agency:Carmen, Lisbon, Portugal
Creative Director:Rodrigo Fabocci
Account Director:Ana Luisa Paiva
Art Director:Rodrigo Fabocci
Copywriter:Marta Santos
Account Supervisor:Tiago Mendonça
Production Company:Garage